earlier today there was a cloture vote on chuck hagel. this is essentially what we knew last week is that republicans were going to hold up the eventual askengs of chuck hagel to become defense secretary in case there was anything in his past that could damn him. seven days later apparently there's nothing in his past so they're comfortable moving forward. he's expected to be confirmed probably within the next five minutes. you can even have it in this block if we're so fortunate. >> does that not prove that the whole nonsense around the nomination process on this man was simply invented? it was theatrics. there was no substance. it's the same as the friends of hamas. shall are they? >> reporter: i think it does show that the republican strategy was to try to bloody him as much as possible with the belief if they were able to do it enough he would perhaps withdraw. he was pretty vehement last week he would not withdraw. now with the sequester looking like it's going to go forward, my calculations there's $46 billion in military cuts over